Learning Beyond the Classroom
What if your first lesson wasn’t in a classroom, but in a museum?
Through relating and creating connections between the humanities and STEM fields, the Neural Knitworks – craft a healthy brain collaboration was a groundbreaking inaugural event hosted by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) and the University of Utah Honors College. The event invited first-year Honors students to explore, empathize, and share their ideas and perspectives through hands-on creativity and reflection.
Neural Knitworks – craft a healthy brain is an international art-science collaboration created by founding artists Pat Pillai and Rita Pearce. The project promotes mind and brain health through yarncraft. Launched in 2014 at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery in Sydney, the award-winning initiative combines art and science by inviting participants to create hand-crafted neurons that represent learning, connection, and well-being.
Learn more about the project at https://www.scienceweek.net.au/neural-knitworks/.
Crafting Connections at the UMFA
In preparation for this event, Honors students were tasked with building neurons out of crafting supplies, such as pipe cleaners and fabric, within their class cohorts. These neurons were then brought to the UMFA, where students worked to combine their individual projects with those of their peers in this collective installation representing the interconnectedness of knowledge, creativity, and community. Through this exercise, students were able to meet Honors students across cohorts and reflect on how individual contributions strengthen the larger whole.
Honors student Sam Krizo recounted, “When I was making the project, I felt uneasy about turning it in, because I do not consider myself an artistic person. However, seeing all the projects together made me realize that each one is unique, and it is hard to focus on the flaws of the individual projects.”
In addition to the Neural Knitworks—craft a healthy brain project, cohorts rotated through various activities throughout the event designed to reinforce these lessons. These included watching a film series that showcased an academic’s experience with spirituality and combating the barriers of sharing their research with the wider public, and completing an art scavenger hunt in the UMFA.
Honors student Lina Hellstrand reflected, “I have never been to the UMFA before, and I plan on returning in the future to either use their study space or walk around the museum again at my own leisure.”
UMFA admission and additional programming at the UMFA are free to all University of Utah students through the Arts Pass, accessible with a UCard. Students are encouraged to visit often.
Faculty Leadership: Thinking With Peers
This project and event were spearheaded by Eric Robertson, an Honors College faculty member whose goal is to inspire his students to think outside the box and help first-year Honors students become more immersed in their community. He hopes that this event, as part of the HONOR 1010: Ideas that Matter curriculum, not only introduces students to a new resource, the UMFA, but also gives them the opportunity to consider how diverse systems of thought and creativity can enhance their college experience. HONOR 1010: Ideas that Matter is the foundational course all first-year Honors students take.
Professor Robertson explained, “[These] ideas come from Thinking With Peers, which is a chapter from the book The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul. This was the first reading in HONOR 1010: Ideas That Matter, that emphasizes how important collaboration and interdisciplinary thinking are to a healthy education.”
Acknowledgments
Neural Knitworks-craft a healthy brain is an art-science collaboration created by Pat Pillai and Rita Pearce. This initiative is supported by Inspiring Australia and the NSW Government. See http://www.scienceweek.net.au/neural-knitworks/ for full acknowledgements.
Aspen Delis | Journalism Intern, University of Utah Honors College